Oh Snap! Let's Eat!

Baked Zucchini Chips

One of my favorite things to do is to experiment with different ideas to cook or bake. This weekend, I made baked zucchini chips. This is a healthy snack choice and reminds me of that Kale Chips making phase I went through a while back. Something to take note though, they’re a bit more difficult to make than kale chips, but they were super super tasty!  Here’s how to make Baked Zucchini Chips:

Baked Zucchini Chips

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

• Zucchinis (1 zucchini makes about a medium sized bowl and was the perfect snack size for 1 person/me!)
• Olive Oil (or if you are strict paleo, melt down coconut oil and use that instead)
• Salt, as desired
• Paprika, as desired

Instructions

0. Preheat oven to 250°F.

1. Slice zucchinis very thinly, about as thin as you can cut it.

Slicing Zucchinis

2. Throw the zucchinis in a mixing bowl and sprinkle oil, salt, and paprika in it. Mix it all together gently. Two things to take note here: 1) Make sure you don’t put too much olive oil so that is is soggy. If this happens, your zucchini chips will come out too soggy. 2) Make sure you don’t put too much salt on there because the zucchini will shrink a considerable amount once it is baked.

Zucchinis sliced thin (in a bowl)

3. Line a baking sheet with either aluminum foil or parchment paper (I tried both, and I the parchment paper one worked slightly better for me because it seemed to have sucked out extra oil.)


4. Place zucchinis on baking sheet without touching each other like so:

Zucchini on baking sheet lined with foil

5. Bake for 30 minutes.

6. Take out zucchini chips and check on them. I flipped them over to make sure they were evenly cooked.


7. Bake for another 30 minutes or until crispy, but keep an eye on them because if they cook too long, they get over cooked.

8. When crispy, take them out and let them air and cool down for a couple of minutes before you eat them!  Be sure to eat them within an hour or two because they will start losing their crispiness!

Baked Zucchini Chips!

 Related Articles:

• Kale Chips Recipe: Healthy, Yummy, and Easy to Make (ohsnapletseat.com)
• Fried Zucchini Snacks (cindystable.com)
  
• Paleo Snack Recipe: Zucchini Hummus (thepeacefulmom.com)

Mmm… eggs

So you’re trying to eat paleo or healthy and that includes eggs, but what’s up with all the different types of eggs you can get?! Farm fresh? That sounds delicious… cage free? What’s the difference between that and free range?  What about organic eggs? Are those fresh from the farm like “farm fresh” eggs sound like they are?

Well, here are your questions answered, mystery solved!

Farm Fresh Eggs

Doesn’t that sound appetizing?  Eggs… fresh from the farm?  Well, it would be if it was true, unfortunately, unless you are literally buying the eggs from a farm or a local super market that actually sells genuine eggs from a farm, the label “farm fresh” means nothing other than it is just eggs… picked from chickens in battery cages.

According to the Humane Society, “On average, each caged laying hen is afforded only 67 square inches of cage space—less space than a single sheet of letter-sized paper on which to live her entire life.”  There’s a whole bunch of concerns about these chickens if you are in to animal welfare, but for me, to be totally honest, I just prefer my eggs to come from healthy chickens.

Battery Caged Chickens

Cage Free Eggs

Now, that sounds better.  Chickens that don’t spend their entire lives in battery cages!  But, what does “cage free” really mean?  Well, to start with, yes they are in a slightly better condition than “farm fresh eggs”.  They literally are not confined in cages.

Before you get an imagery of a bunch of happy chickens taking a brisk walk outside in the sun and laying happy eggs whenever they please, realize that cage free only means cage free.  Unless the packaging states that it is “free range” also, the eggs are most likely laid by chickens that don’t see the light of day as they spend their lives cramped up in hen houses, often in cramped conditions.

Cage Free Chickens

Free Range Eggs

I used to think that all “cage free” eggs are from chickens that are free to walk around in the wild, but actually that is what “Free Range” means… and in reality, “Free Range” means different things in different countries.

In the U.S., if the packaging says the eggs come from “free range” chickens, it means that the bird gets to spend part of its time outside.  (This is what’s required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.)  Now, I’m not really sure how much this actually means, but it’s nice to think that the chickens get to see sun light at least from time to time instead of cramped up in a hen house all day.

Free Range Chickens

Organic Eggs

Now, we are getting to business.  This is my favorite type of eggs, as all the other eggs I’ve listed actually has no restriction on what is fed to the chickens unless otherwise stated.  If the packaging says “organic” in the U.S., it means that the chickens were fed an organic diet – no antibiotics (unless the chickens were sick), and the chickens must live in a cage free and free range environment.  Isn’t that awesome?  They don’t pump antibiotics in to these chickens unless they have to!

Another thing to consider is that with all the other chickens I’ve previously mentioned, forced molting (where egg producers starve the chickens for some time to force chicken’s natural replacement of old feathers by new ones) is allowed.  However, with organic eggs, only natural molting can occur.

Organic Eggs laid by Free Range Chicken

So that’s all I have to say about eggs.  My personal favorite is organic eggs, but obviously every one has their own preference on animal welfare, idea on what is healthier, and preference on price!

Related Articles

• Organic Egg Scorecard (cornucopia.org)
  
• All This Talk of Eggs (meghantelpner.com)
• An Egg Yolk a Day Keeps the Doctor Away (paleodietlifestyle.com)